Ultrasensitive Double-Channel Microfluidic Biosensor-Based Cathodic Photo-electrochemical Analysis Via Signal Amplification of SOD-Au@PANI for Cardiac Troponin I Detection

Interesting double-channel microfluidic chip integration with a sandwich-type cathodic photo-electrochemical (PEC) biosensor is utilized for ultrasensitive and efficient detection of cardiac troponin I (cTnI) based on a signal amplification strategy. The Pd nanoparticles loading on the I-doped bismuth oxybromide with oxygen vacancies (Pd/I:BiOBr-OVs) as a sensing platform can effectively enhance cathodic photocurrent response by improving the visible light absorption ability with I doping, facilitating the efficiency separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs with OVs, and increasing the electron-transfer rate with Pd loading, where the photogenerated electron could be captured by dissolved O to boost generation of a superoxide anion radical (O). To further enhance the PEC response, a novel superoxide dismutase loaded on gold@polyaniline (SOD-Au@PANI) as a signal amplification label is developed for incubating the detection antibody (dAb). It is particularly noteworthy that SOD can effectively catalyze dismutation of the O to produce HO and O, and Au@PANI with a good reduction and catalytic property can catalyze the produced HO into HO and O. Then, the produced O that has been dissolved or adsorbed can capture more photogenerated electrons, resulting in more electron-hole pairs to separate, so as to the cathodic photocurrent signal of this system which can be amplified more significantly. Therefore, a signal amplification cathodic PEC biosensor is prepared for sensitively detecting cTnI, in which a good linearity ranging from 0.1 pg/mL to 100 ng/mL with a low detection limit of 0.042 pg/mL is obtained. Furthermore, the proposed biosensor exhibits excellent sensitivity and high selectivity, which could be extended to detect other disease markers in biological analysis and early disease diagnosis.